A Final Thought On Common

From fools honoring Ted Nugent one day and then railing against the thuggism of Common the next, to those who believe themselves the authority on what is and isn't poetry, I really believe Cornelius Eady told us all we needed to know about this some years ago:

Why Do So Few Blacks Study Creative Writing?

Always the same, sweet hurt,

The understanding that settles in the eyes

Sooner or later, at the end of class,

In the silence pooling in the room.

Sooner or later it comes to this,

You stand face to face with your

Younger face and you have to answer

A student, a young woman this time,

And you're alone in the class room

Or in your office, a day or so later,

And she has to know, if all music

Begins equal, why this poem of hers

Needed a passport, a glossary,

A disclaimer. It was as if I were...

What? Talking for the first time?

Giving yourself up? Away?

There are worlds, and there are worlds,

She reminds you. She needs to know

What's wrong with me? and you want

To crowbar or spade her hurt

To the air. You want photosynthesis

To break it down to an organic language.

You want to shake I hear you

Into her ear, armor her life

With permission. Really, what

Can I say? That if she chooses

To remain here the term

Neighborhood will always have

A foreign stress, that there

Will always be the moment

The small, hard details

Of your life will be made

To circle their wagons?

I tell everybody that I am, at my core, a failed rapper. But I am also a failed djimbe drummer. And perhaps most importantly, I am a failed poet. Eons ago when I thought I was destined for Iowa, this piece was essential to me. Ultimately, it wasn't the lack of a glossary that doomed me, it was lack of talent. Indeed, living in Washington, and being around Howard, I had the luxury of knowing a lot of African-American poets who were simply better. But still, so much of this was true of what I saw in my earliest workshops.

And it's true of what we see in a certain sector of our country--There are worlds and there are worlds. And its true of our president being made to present his papers--The small hard details/Of Your life will be made/To circle their wagons.

But it isn't true of the country as a whole. As surely as I spent the week laughing at Fox News, laughing at Karl Rove, laughing at what "ain't poetry," I know that I was not laughing alone. Hip-hop helped make that so.